Just don’t do it: The ramifications of a termination of the Oslo Accords

By: Gilead Sher

Two and a half decades have passed since the 1993 Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements and the subsequent 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (the ‘Oslo Accords’). Both agreements were attained throughout an extensive process of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over three years and sponsored by the international community led by the US. A number of rounds of negotiations (1991-2001, 2007-2008, 2013-2014) failed to reach the end of conflict or to bring claims to a close in a mutual agreement. There seem to be long odds to resolving in the foreseeable future the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comprehensively if at all, in a permanent-status agreement.

The Oslo accord was designed to last for a period of five years, during which time further negotiations were to take place to move the process forward. The identified final status core issues – Jerusalem, refugees, territory and boundaries, security arrangements – that were supposed to be negotiated and subsequently resolved during that five-year period have yet to be agreed upon. Both parties have at various points in time suggested that they would terminate the Oslo Accords due to violations or non-compliance by the other party, or due to the continuous stalemate, as a domestic political token, or to gain leverage over the other party.